A place to ponder

Swizzels Matlow

Right, to cut a long story short: I wrote a letter to Swizzels Matlow confectioners a couple of weeks back as part of a feature for the last show. However unfortunately they didn’t get back to me in time so I just read out the email and the feature flumped [arrrrr confectionary joke!]. However, today I got a reply from the powers behind such big hits as Love Hearts, Refresher Bars, Drum Sticks and Double Dips.

First of all let me tell you how much I enjoy and have enjoyed your sweets over much of my childhood years. Many an afternoon as a twelve year old I have scoured the playground for coppers that were expelled as projectiles by bullies in order to purchase a refresher bar from the tuck shop. That sugary hit was just what I needed to take me through the rest of my school day.

Not a great deal has changed ten years on, and I still regularly purchase a lemon or strawberry flavoured refresher bar from my student’s union shop to get me through my afternoon lectures. However, imagine my shock one day when I purchased a strawberry refresher bar [please find enclosed] as a boost for Time Series Econometrics only to find that it failed to contain a ‘lovely refreshing centre’. I felt somewhat hard done by, especially after purchasing a second strawberry refresher bar the following day on the assumption that the latter was a freak incident, but only to find that this refresher bar was in an equally less refreshing state.

I appreciate that quality and value for money are core to the principals of Swizzel Matlows and I thought that this incident should be brought to your attention in order that future students and twelve year olds alike will not suffer the same fate as I that dreary Monday afternoon. The listeners of The Andrew Jackson Show* and I look forward to hearing your reply in the near future.

Regards

Andrew Jackson Aged 21 years and 10 months

* The Andrew Jackson Show broadcasts on Manchester’s Student Radio Station Fuse FM online and on air [Manchester only] on www.fusefm.co.uk and 103.5 FM respectively. Tune in 4-6pm Wednesday 7th March for the last ever episode of this award winning show.

The kind people at Swizzels Matlow dutifully replied on March 2 [you can read their full reply by clicking the thumbnail to the right], but alas the parcel just didn’t make it to my hands on time, otherwise its contents may have been distributed to the studio audience, or given away as a prize.

The moral of the story I believe is to have faith in your confectionery company and in turn they will deliver [subject to Royal Mail]. I’m also glad that the ladies and gentlemen at Swizzels Matlow had a sense of humour and didn’t take me to court. In the mean time I will enjoy destroying my teeth and getting on sugar highs while I write my dissertation. Bonus.